Hackers are generally thought of as devious criminals who crack into top-secret government files, or spread nasty computer viruses. The devious reputation of hackers is somewhat deserved – breaking into computer networks is illegal, after all. But there’s another type of hacker with a good reputation for doing this exact thing, albeit for less self-serving purposes.

As a self-taught programmer, you already know how to write code and design applications. So why get a computer science degree on top of that? There are two reasons. One, getting a degree can make you an even better programmer. Two, it can give you a competitive edge in the industry.

Learning new programming languages is one of the most important skills that any computer science or Information Technology student has to master. For many students, studying solely via textbook is challenging and time consuming. Studying through textbooks alone is also typically inadequate at teaching the complicated scientific concepts used in computer programming. A collaborative teaching environment called Code Camp may be one of the most effective methods for learning innovative new computer programming concepts.

Google Glass is a smartphone product that you wear on your head as you would a pair of glasses. Just as you’ve seen in futuristic movies, a display shows your view of information and images. It has a video camera that you command by voice to record what you see, take a snapshot or both. You can stream the video you take or share photos in near real-time. With built-in wireless and GPS, you can display onscreen everything you would expect to access on your mobile computer. An army of developers has already created the Explorer Edition and is now busy making apps specifically for Glass.

Today, cloud computing is one of the most cost effective ways of managing enterprises and web applications. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) explains that cloud computing enables "…on-demand network access to a shared pool of networks, servers, storage, applications and services that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” It’s convenient and efficient technology, for sure.

The Information Technology (IT) function has become increasingly important to overall decision-making and strategy implementation in businesses. That’s not surprising when you consider how technology drives competitive advantage. Innovation enables businesses to stay ahead of the competition, delivering and satisfying more customers more effectively and efficiently. Further, IT is now an important revenue generator as an increasing share of consumer sales are transacted through mobile and online channels.

Interested in adding a Project Manager Professional (PMP) designation to your career toolkit? Recently, I reached out to PMP and friend, Fahad Usmani, to gain his insight on the PMP certification process.

Virtually all government and business databases and operations are digitized. Most are linked through communications networks, with many accessible via the Internet. Since information, from national security secrets to trade secrets and daily business operations, is housed in computers and their networks, it’s not surprising that cyberattacks are a major threat to the cyberworld. Within cyberspace, attacks motivated by criminals, hostile governments, terrorists, ex-employees with grudges and hackers have become an epidemic problem.

For data to truly be an asset, there must be processes, procedures, systems and ownership that insure the accuracy, integrity and timeliness of the data. If data does not have these attributes and capabilities, then why should we be concerned with protecting it? This reveals an obvious front-end requirement of the spectrum of data protection.

Hands down, cloud technology is changing the IT landscape whether we’re ready for it or not. The cloud offers businesses and their IT functions greater flexibility and at a more cost-effective rate, so we can expect this trend to become a mainstay, especially in health care related businesses.

In most organizations, the Chief Security Officer (CSO) or Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is responsible for alerting the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and other key executives of potential security risks related to the business’ critical Information Systems (IS) infrastructure and data. Another key responsibility is to mitigate cyber-attacks.